


A Bite of Sand

by KrisEleven



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: F/M, alt-POV Conspiracy of Kings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 11:10:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2810120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrisEleven/pseuds/KrisEleven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“He is Sounis.”</p><p>“Yes.” </p><p>“It cannot change anything.”</p><p>Attolia closed her eyes, giving them darkness. “No.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bite of Sand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Demeter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demeter/gifts).



When Eugenides turned to her in the middle of the procession and held out a dried pea, Attolia merely raised both eyebrows and waited. It was hardly the strangest thing her husband had done. In fact, it wasn’t the strangest thing he had done that morning, but if she thought about those particular antics too long she was likely to push him into the street, Relius’ reminders that it would do nothing for Eugenides’ image to the people be damned. 

“I just got hit with this.”

Her raised eyebrows dropped with what felt like an audible snap. She caught Teleus’ gaze. Her expression, a mere furrowing, barely remarkable, alerted him at once and he moved immediately from his position along the outskirts of the procession and towards their carriage. “Who.” 

She was expecting Eugenides to point out a trouble-making, contemptuous civilian, but he shrugged. “Sophos,” he said, apparently unconcerned. It was usually one in ten, when he took that bored tone, whether he was actually disinterested or whether it was something he felt extremely strongly about, but this time she didn’t have to wonder which it was.

“He was standing on the marker for Spice Street,” he told Teleus. 

“I’ll send a contingent to Market and move back this way,” Teleus said. “They’ll catch him between the crowds.”

“Tell them nothing,” Attolia reminded him. “Just that he is not to be harmed.”

Teleus strode away, turning to give his orders. Eugeindes watched the crowds. Attolia watched him. As unlikely as it seemed that Sounis’ missing heir would turn up in an Attolian street shooting peas, she would not question her husband on it. As infuriating as he was, he was rarely wrong.

It would be at least four hours until they could return from greeting the ambassadors to return to check on their visitor, and he had been searching for news – any news – for so long. Though he hid it well, patience was one of his many strengths. Still, she shifted her feet slightly, pressing one against the side of his boot. He gave her a soft smile.

* * *

He came to her room as she prepared for the audience with their unexpected (and unexpectantly royal) guest. She heard the window click shut in the way he always did by design, usually to wake her and ensure she didn’t stab her poor husband when he lifted the covers and joined her beneath them. She had thought he would come. Her attendants were waiting for her in the antechamber. 

She heard him sit on the bed and she joined him. Without speaking, they curled up together.

He rarely felt the need to come to her secretly, now that his charade with the court had changed rules, and the one with his attendants had shifted largely into their terrified obedience. She tried not to be satisfied with that, with the pale draw and quiet submission they showed now, but they had been asking for him to destroy them. She would have done worse than cow them into obedience, but of course the difference between Eugenides and her was that he didn’t have to. She would have destroyed them, unable to trust them and unwilling to forgive. Eugenides hadn’t bothered. He hadn’t needed to. In revealing himself, he had gained their loyalty, absolute and unbidden and unwelcome by every one of them, Eugenides included. Of course, this complete disregard didn’t grant forgiveness either. In that way, Attolia and Attolis were well matched.

He slid up against her, arm curving around her waist. She held onto one of his fingers lightly. His other hand – arm – was underneath him, removed from the moment. It usually was. 

“He is Sounis.”

“Yes.” Eugenides had come to her and Releus’ replacement to inform them of the change as soon as he had finished his conversation with Sophos, before the new, sheltered king was even situated in his rooms. 

“It cannot change anything.”

Attolia closed her eyes, giving them darkness. “No.”

They were silent. “He was my friend.”

She pressed back against him and thread her fingers between his. She wanted to apologize, but they were well matched and it was the first rule of leadership, to never ask for something you weren’t sure you would get.

* * *

Attolia did not see Eugenides after the disastrous audience. Instead, she left him to talk to his cousin, Eddis and returned to her rooms. For the second time that day, she sent her attendants away, keeping only Phresine to get her ready for dinner. She thought Phresine would ignore her upset, but she never quite did what Attolia expected of her anymore.

“Your Majesty,” she murmured as she fixed Attolia’s hair.

“How horrible to have the woman you love cut off your hand. How terrifying to fall in love with a man after you’ve maimed him.”

“How wondrous to have the love blossom anyway?” Phresine asked, smoothing a finger over a wrinkled cloth rather than the tears on her Queen’s cheek. “He forgives you.”

“How much can he forgive.” Attolia would break Sounis, would drive him to ruthlessness and violence abhorrent to him if it would save her country. So would Eugenides.  
This was what his love for her made of him.

* * *

Attolia managed from a distance. She spoke to Ornan, with Eddis, and at Eugenides. She watched Eugenides put his masks on each time Sounis spoke with them. She watched Sophos’ sweet, expressive face grow increasingly confused, stubbornly disappointed and angrily bewildered. Eddis was worried that she would have to choose between them, without understanding why the choice would tear her apart. Attolia did not tell her. There would be plenty of heartbreak as this unfolded, she feared.

Perhaps Sounis would relent, eventually, but his friendship with Eugenides, and perhaps even Eddis, would not survive him being forced to submission. The Mede ambassador got Sophos alone and drove Eugenides into a rage. Releus thought that she needed to push and prod them all into place, without advising her as such, knowing what it would mean. But the Medes hovered on the horizon, a dark cloud across the sea threatening them all. Until the fight with Melhert, she was rather hopeless about the whole situation.

* * *

Costis fell back on his bed and closed his eyes. He brought his hands up to his face and pressed fingers to both of his eyes. Teleus had let them all know what was to happen, in secret, in advance, the Guard who would be attending the fight between Eugenides and the Mede ambassador and Costis himself, still removed, technically, from the Guard in an odd sort of limbo. Their King and the Ambassador would fight. The King would lose. 

Costis had been torn. He was almost looking forward to the show, because he knew how much His King would loathe losing. Even as a farce. Even knowing that everyone knew it was a farce, he was going to loath it, and that petulant anger was funny when it wasn’t pointed in Costis’ direction.

At the same time… Eugenides was His King, and he had felt an odd surge of protective anger.... The gods laugh at them all.

He had thought it had all gone fairly well, all things considered. The fight was painful to watch, but Eugenides hadn’t failed to supply the expected tantrum, and the training session afterwards had been illuminating. But then Attolis had dismissed Sounis, and the other king had nodded, eyes flicking up to the sky in an all-too-familiar gesture of supplication for some kind of divine intervention. Eugenides tended to bring it out in people. Then he had shoved the last of his roll in his mouth like he knew hunger and pushed Costis’ king to the ground.

And because Costis had tied himself to an absolute mad bastard, and this fact hadn’t been made clear enough, Eugenides had flopped down on the dirt and _laughed_.

No. It was no longer his job to take care of crazy kings. He had been relieved of his position. If Teleus wanted him, he was going to have to come and get him. He had done his evening duties and late shift on the wall and now he was _hiding_.

“No,” he moaned as the door was pulled open. 

Aris slipped inside. He was still dressed in full uniform, had obviously come to Costis’ room directly from his shift, judging by the last bell Costis had heard.

“You will _not_ believe –”

“I just watched the whole thing, Aris. I drew my sword on a king, and then ours merely flapped a hand around and they walked off arm and arm. I was there, though I don’t believe it.”

“Not that.”

Costis sat up, making room for his friend. “What _now_?” He didn’t whine. 

Aris told an increasingly distressed Costis about Eugenides’ trip out into the city (not unusual), and then how Sounis had joined him. “ _That_ face emerging from the darkness, I thought I was going to piss myself.”

“What did he do?” Costis asked, held in a despairing sort of fascination.

“Pressed a silver piece into my hand and disappeared into the city.”

Costis took a moment to think this through. “You just lost two kings.”

“Shut your mouth,” Aris moaned. “What was I supposed to do?”

Costis was quiet, knowing what his friend’s reaction was going to be, but… 

“Have you told Teleus yet?”

Predictably, Aris grabbed the pillow from under his face and proceeded to try his best to smother Costis with it. Costis struggled valiantly, and couldn’t help but laugh at the situation. Costis will never, never understand His King, and he has come to grips with that. But did Sounis have to be so equally impossible?

* * *

After the fight, there was a glimmer of light on the horizon. Not bright – more like the reflection of moonlight in a fountain – but the understanding between Attolis and Sounis gave Sounis faith in their friendship, and that angry hurt that had been lingering in his eyes was gone. He trusted them again. Eddis and Eugenides. He was frightened of Attolia.  
He wasn’t in any danger from her; if she killed him, the Medes would destroy them all. The kitchen staff, on the other hand, was protected only by her husband’s capricious will. She reminded herself of this at dinner, keeping her expression neutral while she felt murderous, watching the exchange between her husband and Sounis. No matter that her husband showed no sign of irritation or anger; she had expected something like this to happen. He knew who it was in the kitchen, and she knew he knew, and he even knew that she knew he knew, but he wouldn’t tell her and she couldn’t very well eviscerate the entirety of her kitchen, though she felt like it.

Not only did she blame him for making her think herself into knots – which she surely had never done before he kidnapped her – but she also blamed him for being so irritating in allowing himself to be irritated. And by someone she could have dismissed with a word. 

Sounis glanced over at her and her suspicions were confirmed as to their conversation topic. The nerve of whoever it was that prepared the food, sending it out in front of two kings. 

_On the plus side, however_ , she thought as she nodded for her cup to be refilled and gestured for the ambassador to continue his conversation with her, _this surely means that it will all come out into the open. Eugenides may very well be willing to ignore the sand to make himself seem less dangerous to the court, but Sounis has no reason to do the same. He will complain and the staff will be purged and my husband will be able to eat a meal in peace._

So she was shocked when, after a brief exchange of words, Sounis ate a piece of sand-coated lamb for her husband with almost a straight face. 

There was no reason he would want to eat the food unless it was so that Eugenides didn’t have to and, unbidden, she found herself feeling fond of the new king of Sounis.  
Keeping her face impartial, she turned back to her attendant and answered the question she had been asked while observing her husband and his friend.

* * *

And then he was gone, their gifts marking his path. Both Attolia and Eugenides knew what he would have to do to keep their countries safe. It pained them both, though in different ways: Eugenides grieved for the boy he had stolen Hamiathes’ Gift with, just short years previous; Attolia grieved for the long-gone girl picking coleus leaves in the Royal Gardens, in secret.

He didn’t come to her. Finally, Attolia stood and unlatched the window, climbing out onto the narrow ledge. It was a short walk, this way, to the King’s rooms. He had known this, when he chose them. Had known that she would be able to complete this journey, if need be, though she had never done it this way, by herself. Always before, he had come to her, and on one occasion and only the once, he had guided her carefully.

She remembered the path. When she climbed in through his window, nightgown glowing in the moonlight and tangled around her ankles, her husband stared at her wide-eyed and laughed. Even knowing that it was despite himself, she smiled. Perhaps it was because it was despite his misery and worry, at sending his friend away into the violent, frightening choices that were leadership that made the laugh so precious to her. He stood and met her halfway, reaching out to draw her in.

She allowed him to hold her close, hiding her face from him in the embrace. “I’m sorry,” she said. She said it finally, and she said it knowing that she _didn’t know_ if he could forgive her this latest of decisions he had never wanted to make.

She wouldn’t have forgiven herself, but if they were alike in many things, in this – in forgiving Irene her trespasses – they were night and day. He simply held her tighter and pressed a kiss to her temple. 

“Whatever happens is in the gods’ hands now,” he said.

Attolia thought of the boy with a vicious scarred face and kind, soft eyes. Who trusted in friendship, still, who would eat sand-coated lamb. A King who had a balance of fierce love and serene wisdom, humility and strength. Attolia rather thought she would more happily leave it in Sounis’, though she wouldn’t tempt the gods’ humour by saying it aloud. Instead, she drew away, threading her fingers through Eugenides’s hand and led her husband to bed.


End file.
